It's worth pointing out that few other studios have the confidence to take this approach to horror: not to jolt you with sudden frights or to ration your ammunition, but to probe and puncture your emotional ease by putting foulness in such close proximity to the childish.
Who would have thought that the solution to madness might be marriage?
Bloober Team has summoned a rich atmosphere, under all that writing, and one or two sequences offer glimpses of a purer game.
That's why, as much as Hitman III was a pleasure to play, it left me longing for the mood of the old games.
The scenes that have lodged most deeply in my memory are not those devoted to the chases, the shootouts, or the narrow squeaks, but those possessed of a quiet empathy.
What I didn't expect from the new Call of Duty was downtime, and the suggestion, at least in the first half, that guns, while great for going in blazing, can provide just as potent a thrill when holstered.
I would prescribe The Pathless to anyone feeling numbed and locked by our days of inanition; it's perfect if you feel your home becoming an isle on the edge of the world.
Where Sackboy: A big Adventure proves most winsome isn't in its play but in the surfeit of its surrounding glitter.
If you wish to see what your new console can do, this is the game to get; it provides the most whimper for your buck.
The developer, SIE Japan Studio, has forged a platformer from the same blend of delirium and precision that blows through Super Mario, and then filled it with fossils.